Defense minister Shin Won-sik said on Monday that North Korea is likely to launch its spy satellite in the middle of this month.

The minister made the remarks to reporters while observing the country's second military spy satellite launched from a U.S. space center on Monday morning.

The minister said South Korea has been closely watching the North, thinking that the launch may happen in March, but the regime appears to be making some complementary measures.
 
Shin said Pyongyang would probably seek to launch it on April 15, the birth anniversary of the North's late founder Kim Il-sung, but if it needs to make additional technological complementation, the launch may be delayed until late April.

Regarding the inter-Korean technological gap in reconnaissance satellites, the minister said Seoul is far ahead of Pyongyang and that South Korean satellites equipped with synthetic aperture radar are world class in terms of performance capabilities.